HOW TO BUILD A BETTER WORKPLACE

Each of these postings can be read individually and will provide you with useful information. However many of them are related to each other, and all together, they generally fit together. Some will be understood better, and be more helpful to you, if you read them in order. Those postings can be accessed by going to the PREVIOUS POSTS, listed right under the ABOUT ME box on the right side of your screen, or by scrolling down to the other posts directly under this one.


Self Esteem Is The Key

When I talk about high self-esteem, I’m not referring to people who are narcissistic
and arrogant. Arrogance is the opposite of self-esteem. As someone once put it,
arrogance is simply ignorance matured. When arrogance gains confidence, it is time
to worry. As we will see, arrogance and bullying behavior often comes from people
who are so insecure, that any thought of acknowledging mistakes creates such
intense feelings of anxiety they just can’t stand it. Those people create problems. They are disruptive to harmony and smooth production.

People with high self-esteem have a realistic, underlying confidence about life and themselves that allows them to be open to useful feedback. They see constructive criticism as useful information that they may be straying off course, not as a threat.. They see people who offer helpful feedback (even criticism) as something to be grateful for, not as enemies to be attacked.

Another great advantage for people who value themselves and generally feel good about themselves is that, typically, they bring fewer problems to the workplace. They are nice to be around. Most of us are not at our best when we are feeling stress and pressure in our lives. When there are ongoing personal conflicts at home, we bring our emotions to work. Although I have heard employers insist that people keep their personal lives separate from work, I have never seen anyone manage to do this. I take myself wherever I go. If I am suffering emotionally, how would I realistically leave ‘it’ at home? If I use some of my mental and emotional energy to not think about ‘It’ then that energy is not available to use productively. I have noticed that when I am actively trying to ignore a thought or feeling that is urgently disturbing me, the effort requires that I not think very efficiently at all, otherwise, I immediately think of 'it'. ‘It’ is always lurking just out of my awareness, pushing and shoving to get to the front. Other people have told me they have similar experiences.

It is almost a truism to say people with higher self-esteem create more enjoyable lives. If you value yourself, then you accept that you deserve the good things in life. Although there can be different definitions of “the good things” in life, I think many people would include good physical health, loving, happy, supportive, satisfying, joyful, enthusing and inspiring relationships, an abundant income, inspiring work that springs from passion, is valued and makes a contribution and, an abundance of personal time to enjoy it all.

People who value themselves not only want a satisfying income, they want to feel good about the work they are doing. They are willing to put forth extra effort to feel good about the quality of the work. It is easy to expect that because they value their work they will put their best efforts into it. Workers who see themselves as deserving more and are open to learning more will be motivated to find ways to advance. This includes finding ways to be more productive and improve the quality of their work.

These people take better care of themselves physically and emotionally, so they require fewer sick days. In the main, they will have happier home lives because they are not as available for unhealthy, destructive relationships. It follows that many people find these qualities attractive and so they will also attract and be attracted to another person with healthy self-esteem.

If you value yourself and feel good about yourself, it is likely you will want to spend your time with other healthy, positive, contributing people. That doesn’t mean that you won’t have problems or that you will want to approach life in a Pollyanna-like state of denial. It does mean you will have fewer avoidable personal problems, plus you are more likely to have a strong external support system in addition to strong inner resources when a problem does arise.

On the other hand, people with low self-esteem, people who don’t really value themselves are more likely to have more of the types of problems that sneak their way into the workplace and cause disruption. Their endless series of crises, illnesses and
emergencies cause stress for others as well as themselves.

It makes sense that someone who doesn’t value themselves will be very concerned with hiding the “unacceptable truth” (their perception of themselves) from others to avoid rejection or blame. In the workplace, this preoccupation can take different forms. A subordinate may fear conflict or blame so much that he/she may hide legitimate problems from a supervisor in order to avoid the possibility of having their self-defined “defectiveness” discovered. Such people often report feeling like frauds who cannot understand why they even have their position. No matter how accomplished they are in their professional lives, their underlying feelings of being inadequate keep them in constant anxiety of eventually being “unmasked.” It’s easy to understand how this belief would increase the fear they associate with being responsible for a mistake. When a person’s self-esteem is too low, their behavior turns from being productive to being protective. Your everyday dealings in your business will give you a first hand demonstration of how pervasive this problem is in most work settings. Ask yourself how much effort is spent by the people where you work “covering their behinds.”

Supervisors and managers who suffer from low self-esteem can create climates of fear due to their own desire to avoid blame and being discovered as “inadequate and defective.” Often this will appear as unnecessary bullying behavior.

One of the questions I ask managers to look at is “how easy am I to do business with?” When someone brings a problem to my attention do I immediately get angry and look for someone to blame? Am I more concerned with the getting difficulty resolved or with “getting the monkey off of my back “by finding someone to blame? When a supervisor feels this way about her/himself each mistake is taken as a personal indictment of them and blame must quickly be assigned elsewhere because the pain of their internal self-condemnation is too painful. Eventually, the people around them learn to avoid giving out any information that could get them in trouble with the boss. You can see how this type of interaction between workers and supervisors can create a workplace in which much more energy is devoted to keeping up an appearance that everything is fine than is devoted to carrying out the mission.

A colleague of mine works in Human Resources for a large corporation. He also knows many other people in that field. He offered this explanation of why many companies have difficulty filling positions. According to him, in companies that have a fear-based climate, making a mistake can hurt your career, or even cost you your job.
Therefore, when a resume submitted, the first task is to look for reasons to reject it. If you reject an application because they aren’t qualified “it is not your fault that no one qualified applied for the job.” There is no risk of being blamed for a mistake if you avoid making a hiring decision. On the other hand, if you select someone who later turns out to be a problem, blame could be assigned to you. If there is even the slightest concern, making no decision is the safest course. Even though the company may be damaged more by the lack of production from an unfilled position, and a downturn in business could eventually result in a layoff for the non-decision maker, in a large company the decay can take a long time. Compared with the immediate consequences of being blamed for a mistake, the downside of not being responsible appears small.

When I heard this explanation, I thought of an incident reported to me when I was interning as a Family Therapist. My supervisor was married to an engineer who supervised a department in a large aerospace company. He desperately needed to fill a vacant position, and was told by Human Resources they did not have any qualified applicants. After many weeks, he became suspicious and submitted his own resume for the position, and was rejected.

If you are an employer or supervisor, it is worth considering this challenge. Ask yourself “How I can set up an environment where each person is actively participating in programs to increase her/his sense of personal value, and at the same time being mutually supportive of everyone else’s efforts to do the same.” What if you went to work each day knowing that 5, 10, or even 100 or more people were actively conspiring to do you good? Would that make a difference in your company?

We will discuss how to create this type of work place in a later post. Stay tuned and check back. I suggest you add this blog to your list of favorites. That way, it will be easy to find again.

Please send me your comments and suggestions for future topics by clicking on the comments section at the end of each posting. Or you can e-mail me: bruyoli@hotmail.com Also keep checking back to see how I have responded to your suggestion or question in future postings.